


Plea bargain

by belmanoir



Series: I used to live here [3]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-19
Updated: 2014-01-19
Packaged: 2018-01-09 08:16:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1143665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/belmanoir/pseuds/belmanoir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tommy tells Laurel that Oliver is the vigilante. It doesn't go quite as he imagined.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Plea bargain

Laurel's voice wakes Tommy in the morning. He opens his eyes. She's standing on the other side of the room, all dressed up.

She used to roll over in bed and shake him awake with a hand on his shoulder if he slept through his alarm. Probably she thinks that now he's one of those PTSD guys who try to choke you to death if you startle them. Hell, maybe he is. "What time is it?" he croaks. "Did I sleep all day?"

She looks confused for a second. "Oh. No, I work at the DA's office now, I have to dress up a little more for work. It's only 7:30, but I didn't want you to wake up to an empty apartment."

He sits up, rubbing his eyes. "Thanks. Um. Should I head out, or...?" Funny how he remembers how to do this, can make it sound normal without trying, as if they'd just gotten drunk and fallen into bed together.

"It's up to you. I can loan you a key if you want to stay for a few days."

So careful to say _loan_ and _a few days_. Wouldn't want him getting any ideas. "Thanks," he makes himself say. "I'd like that."

She smiles unconvincingly. "The key's on the kitchen table. Do you want me to run to the ATM for you before I head to work? There isn't a lot to eat in the house."

Tommy tries to decide if he'll really be brave enough to open the door to a delivery guy. He definitely won't be brave enough to go out for lunch.

"I'll just do that," she says. "I'll be back in a few minutes. Do you--do you want me to show you how to use the shotgun?"

He should say yes. He should learn how to defend himself. He hates the idea. He might, actually, rather die than kill somebody. 

He'll have to get over it, but maybe not right this second. He shakes his head. The door shuts and locks behind her, and he tries not to think about the time Oliver crashed through the living room window and how easy that would be for someone else to do.

Although actually, he's not sure how Oliver did it. Did he rappel from the roof?

Okay. Tommy can manage to get out of bed and be in an empty apartment. He can. He throws back the covers carefully and swings his feet to the floor. It's a few more deep, calming breaths before he can stand up. He shuts the curtains, trying to stay out of sight, and goes into the living room. That window is so big. It's amazing that Laurel can stand to live in this apartment after the number of times it's been invaded. But Laurel always was the bravest of them. The contrariest, too.

The kitchen smells like coffee. Tommy would really like some coffee but he should probably wait and try that on a full stomach. He pours himself a bowl of Cheerios and sits at the table. It could almost be just a regular morning, except that if it were a regular morning there wouldn't be this hollow sense of dread where his stomach should be.

Or would there? Well, maybe not _this_ hollow sense of dread, but he remembers other mornings when Oliver was still gone, making omelettes in this kitchen and thinking, _Why don't I want to leave?_ He's always just been waiting for Laurel to kick him out.

That isn't, maybe, actually where this dread is coming from, but it feels like it is.

He hears the key turning in the lock. "It's me," she calls from the hallway, which he really appreciates.

"I'm in the kitchen." He tries to look normal. He smiles at her when she comes in, and she stops in the doorway and puts her hand on the jamb like she can't breathe for a second. He hopes it's because she missed having him around in the morning and not because he gave her a depressed-alien smile like Oliver's. It feels like maybe he did, though. 

_Pull it together, Tommy._ He can do this. Putting on a happy face and awkward morning afters are two of his top skills. He stands up, with a better smile this time. "You look great," he says, and comes over to take the money from her. "Thank you." Yep, it sounds totally natural now. "Can I use your laptop or do you take it to work?"

"Yes, of course. It's on the coffee table." She really has lost a lot of weight. As much as he'd like to believe that she's been wasting away of a broken heart, it seems more likely that other stuff has happened in the meantime. Stuff he wasn't here for, couldn't support her through, doesn't even know about. "I'd take a sick day," she says, "but we've been trying to schedule this deposition for weeks. I'll try to leave early."

"Do what you need to do," he says easily. "I'll still be here when you get back."

Unexpectedly, she gives him a tight hug, holding on for a long time before she turns away, picks up her bag and rushes out the door.

He waits a full five minutes to see if she's coming back for something she forgot before he checks all the windows, closes all the curtains, and puts on the chain. She has a chain now. That's new. 

Cheerios downed, a day of normal eating and two good nights' sleep under his belt, he actually manages seven push-ups before collapsing on the floor gasping for breath. Next it's a slow jog around the apartment. He manages two laps of that--he never thought of it as a big apartment before--and it takes him fifteen minutes to recover to where he can even go pour himself a glass of water. Maybe he should eat another bowl of Cheerios. Or scramble a couple of eggs. Protein is good. But the idea makes him feel sick, so he just boots up her laptop and starts with a YouTube search for Oliver Queen, May 2013 to present. 

An hour later, he's kind of in awe at how badly Oliver has bungled his PR. Also, wow, Tommy's dad slept with Moira Queen? He immediately files that under _things I will never think about again_. 

At 9:15, the untraceable phone Ollie gave him beeps. It's a text from Oliver. _Have you told her?_

_Not yet. When she gets home from work tonight._

_What about last night?_

It doesn't seem to occur to him that they might have things to talk about other than him. _Last night we didn't end up talking much,_ Tommy types. Then he wonders if he should try to rephrase that so it doesn't sound like he's talking about sex, because maybe it's cruel to let Oliver think that. On the other hand, probably going into detail won't exactly be easier on the guy's feelings. 

Maybe it's okay if Oliver doesn't know just how mixed Laurel's welcome was. A part of Tommy that he doesn't like too much suggests, _If he thinks things are going well now, when everything blows up in my face he'll think it's because of his secret,_ and kind of likes the idea. 

He's giving this way too much thought and Oliver is probably staring at the phone waiting for a reply. Tommy hits _send_.

No reply. He does a news search on Laurel for the last eight months. Holy shit that's a lot of results. It's mostly just stuff about her job, short quotes about various cases, but--oh my god. She and her father were abducted by the Dollmaker? And here--she was dating some local politician who was arrested for terrorism and...trying to create supersoldiers? Wait, isn't that the same guy who made that speech about Oliver at the benefit he didn't bother showing up to? Gradually he pieces the story together. Probably he could just call Oliver and ask, but this feels more reliable, which is a sad commentary on their friendship. So Laurel was dating this guy and realized something was really wrong, and blew the cover on his operation. Good for her, but wow, that couldn't have been fun. 

He also finds some interviews about the vigilante, and how she wants to bring him to justice. Huh. When Oliver had said Laurel didn't agree with some of the vigilante's actions, Tommy hadn't realized that meant she was on a single-minded campaign to bring him down and destroy him. 

Then he sees that her dad's partner was killed. 

Tommy should have been here.

 _You didn't leave her,_ he reminds himself. _You were kidnapped._ It doesn't feel very convincing. 

Lunchtime rolls around, and he decides to scramble some eggs. There's only one egg left in the container. Digging through the cabinets, he finds a dusty can of condensed cream of mushroom soup sitting next to a container of crispy onions. It'll have to do.

Laurel's computer dings as he's eating the last mouthful of cold soup. 

_**D.L. Lance:** how are you doing?_

Laurel must be pinging herself from her work e-mail because she knows he's using her laptop. _fine,_ he types back. _how about you?_

They used to flirt-text all day. Laurel always loved that stuff, the chocolate and flowers and flirty selfies. So did he.

He should have asked her out sooner. He should have gone after her years ago. Eventually, surely, it would have stopped feeling weird and wrong. He would have stopped wondering, _Is she only with me because she can't have the person she really wants? Is she only with me because she's angry at Oliver? Is she only with me because she wants to be with someone who misses him too? Would Ollie hate me if he knew?_ By the time Oliver came back, maybe he and Laurel could have been so solid it wouldn't even have been a thing.

 _fine,_ comes her reply. They're both lying, and they both know it. 

_okay i lied,_ he tells her. _i'm kind of a nervous wreck. thanks for checking in._

 _xoxo_ comes her reply. _i'll be there as soon as i can._ She doesn't take back her own _fine_.

 _go get 'em, tiger!_ he says.

No reply.

She's going to be angry when he tells her about Oliver. She's going to be furious. But that doesn't mean anything about how she'll feel tomorrow. So she's mad at the vigilante right now, or she was a few months ago. She was mad at Oliver when he got back too. Tommy had actually thought it might last, and it had lasted what, a week? Two? She'd been crazy about Oliver. You don't just leave something like that behind.

Tommy and Laurel were good together. He made her happy. But he doesn't know if he ever made her glow the way Oliver had. He can picture how she used to throw her arms around Oliver's neck and go up on her tip-toes to kiss him. When he walked into the room she'd beam at him as if he'd just cured cancer while winning the Olympics.

Of course, she'd been twenty-two. None of them smile as much as they used to. And she'd had to go up on her tip-toes because she never wore heels back then and Oliver's tall.

Oliver texts again. _Should I swing by with food?_

 _That would be incredible. Can you bring me a latte too?_ Tommy opens the curtains while he's waiting. He doesn't want Oliver to find him hiding in here. He also queues up a couple of his favorite YouTube clips.

###

Oliver brings Big Belly burgers and a short single-shot latte. It's sort of sweet to see Oliver trying to take care of another person. It's also sweet when Oliver offers Tommy his credit card, although it doesn't feel as good to accept. "Do you want to come back to the club?" Oliver asks. "I'd love to have you, but you might have to fight Thea for it."

"Thea's running the club?" Figures Oliver wouldn't be doing it.

"Yeah, I um, I kind of took off for a while after your funeral. When I came back, she was knee-deep in merchandising."

"That's really flattering, but...wasn't your mom in jail? Was Thea all by herself?"

Oliver looks uncomfortable. No one was taking care of Laurel, then, either. Maybe it's not fair to put that on Oliver, but it still pisses Tommy off how eager he is to take responsibility for everyone's safety when he can't actually be bothered to give them the time of day. 

Still, Tommy's hardly one to lecture about responsible behavior. "I don't want the club back," he says. "I have a better idea. I, um, noticed you tried to throw a benefit while I was gone." He opens up Laurel's laptop and hits play on the speech by Alderman Blood. _Thank you...thank you, but you should hold your applause for Oliver Queen..._

Oliver flinches. "Turn that off," he says viciously. 

Tommy hits the space bar, trying not to flinch himself. "Yeah, I heard he turned out to be evil and Laurel took him down. Not the point. The point is that that benefit should have been a no-brainer. There are problems in this city that can't be solved with money, Oliver, but there are also a hell of a lot of problems that can be."

A muscle twitches in Oliver's jaw. "I wanted to be there," he says. "I really wanted to be there. But Felicity called me at the last minute--"

"It was also completely the wrong atmosphere for that crowd. You lit it like the club, Ollie."

"It was candlelit," he says tightly. "Like a memorial."

It's actually not a bad idea, but it really didn't come across. "Look, I'm going to get some of my money back," he says. "I don't want it. It's blood money."

To his surprise, Oliver gets it right away. "You want to start a foundation."

Tommy nods. "I want you to start it with me. Actually, I want you to start it and employ me to run it. I don't want my father's name on it."

"Merlyn is your name too."

"Yeah. Maybe I'll change it when I get married," he says. It's meant to be a joke but neither of them know how to follow it so it just hangs there awkwardly.

Then Oliver does laugh, a real laugh. "Man, if you had told us six years ago that today I'd be a CEO and you'd be running a charitable foundation..."

"We would have asked where to buy what you were on."

Oliver gets a text and grimaces. "I have to get back to the office," he says, giving Tommy an embarrassed smile.

Tommy gives him a shove. "Well, go on, ya pencil pusher."

Oliver hesitates. "Call me if you need to be picked up later."

Tommy nods.

"Thanks for doing this. Talking to Laurel."

Tommy nods again, although the closer it gets, the more he realizes how messy it's going to be. Still, Tommy stands to gain too, and it's pretty clear by now that telling Laurel things is just not in Oliver's skill set.

Tommy manages to leave the curtains open without feeling too anxious until it gets dark and he can't see out. He shuts them all and reads Yelp reviews of the club until Laurel gets home.

###

Laurel brings a bag of food, too. Chinese takeout, finally, from their favorite place. He's so tempted to put this off just one more day, just until after dinner, just one more minute, but he can't.

"Before we eat, there's something I need to tell you."

Her face drains of color. "What is it? Are you all right?"

"It isn't bad news. Well. It's kind of upsetting, but...you should sit down."

She sits at the other corner of the couch, as far from him as she can get, stiff and watchful.

"Promise me something first," he says. "Promise me you'll wait a week before you tell anyone else what I'm about to tell you."

"Why? What happens in a week?"

"Nothing. I just want you to think it over first."

He feels a sharp pang of loss at the expression on her face. No softness or trust. She's afraid to let her guard down with him. "Okay."

"It's about Oliver."

She blinks. "About _Oliver?_ "

"He's...I didn't know for a long time either, he only told me because--Oliver's the vigilante."

She blinks again. "No, he isn't," she says with assurance. "He was cleared."

Tommy doesn't want to insult her father's detective work. "He is," he says. "I've seen him fight. He has a secret headquarters under the club. He rescued me two days ago. He is."

She doesn't move. Her mouth is trembling. It's shock now. It's going to be rage in a minute. Tommy tries to brace himself. "But he told me--he said--"

"This is Oliver we're talking about. He lied."

"My father _likes_ the Arrow," she says, as if that's the worst crime Oliver has committed. "God, he'd be so humiliated if he found out."

"I felt pretty humiliated myself," Tommy says carefully, trying to convey _it would be okay if you wanted to talk about being humiliated too_.

Her eyes narrow on him. "How long have you known about this?"

"I found out the night my father was shot. He only told me because I didn't want to do the blood transfusion. He didn't know yet that my father was..." He can't finish that sentence. "He didn't know yet what my father was. He probably regrets it now." Tommy regrets it too. He has to. It would be so selfish not to. So many people would still be alive. The Glades would still be standing. His father would actually be dead and they'd all be safe.

But he wouldn't know the truth. And his father would be dead.

In which case, Tommy would have been with Laurel all this time. He's gone over this a lot, and every way he turns, he's being selfish. 

Laurel's too polite to actually say that she regrets Ollie saving Tommy's dad too, but it's all over her face. "Of course. Right when you started being distracted and emotionally unavailable."

"Um...yeah. Sorry about that. I, uh, it really threw me."

"You said it was my fault."

"I--" _didn't_. But he did. Oops.

"Why are you telling me this now?" she asks dangerously. He's seen her do this in court. He could have lived without it ever being directed at him. "Why now, and not before?"

He tries to think of a way to say it that doesn't sound bad. It isn't bad, so why does it sound so bad? "I couldn't be with you and lie to you. I tried, and it was awful, remember?"

"So you've made a decision to betray Oliver's confidence because you want me back," she suggests, insincerely helpful. She's obviously figured out the truth already and doesn't like it for some reason.

"He asked me to tell you," Tommy admits quietly. "Laurel, I wanted to tell you. I _really_ wanted to tell you. It was eating me up. But Oliver's committed capital crimes. You're a lawyer and your father's a cop. I couldn't tell you without his consent. And..." It's stupid to say this, but he owes it to Oliver. "I understand why he didn't want to put you in that position."

"I can't believe how self-righteous the two of you are," she bursts out. "I can't believe you have the nerve to sit there and pretend that consideration for my feelings has anything to do with any decision either of you have ever made in your entire lives."

"Don't lump me in with Oliver," he says sharply.

She laughs, sounding a little hysterical. "Why not? I can't believe you. I can't believe you looked me in the eye and told me you were breaking up with me because I belonged with Oliver."

His mouth sets. "Well, it did seem like confirmation when less than a week later the two of you couldn't even make it to the bed!"

"We were broken up! You broke up with me. I would never have cheated on you and you know it."

"That's definitely what I look for in a relationship, someone who's only holding back from fucking my best friend's brains out because--"

"Because I made a commitment to you? That's what monogamy _is_ , Tommy!" She shakes her head. "I guess you and Oliver can't really understand that since you were both just faithful to me until it stopped being easy."

 _Don't compare me to Oliver._ He hangs onto his temper with both hands. "I freaked out. I freaked out and I was angry and I was jealous and I was cruel to you. I'm sorry. But it's not easy for me to--" He tries to find words to explain how much work it was, just being a normal boyfriend and having a job and standing next to Oliver and not feeling like an imposter. "It wasn't easy for me to feel worthy of you. And I think I'm entitled to three days of freakout in a year-long relationship. I wasn't exactly planning to die in the ultimate guilt trip."

She stands up. "Yeah. You were a great boyfriend, Tommy. You were a great boyfriend after Oliver came back and gave you permission to date me. What about the five years before that? My sister died, my mom left, my dad started drinking, I went to law school and managed a legal clinic, maybe I could have used some support then. But you were too busy stamping Property of Oliver Queen on my forehead!"

"I had to beg you to date me," Tommy points out, stunned by the injustice. "You called us a _lapse_."

"Yeah, I did. Because I don't usually have sex with guys who make it so abundantly clear they have no interest in actually being with me. I didn't see anyone else those five years, Tommy. We both know you can't say the same thing."

Tommy knows this can't be an accurate picture of what happened. He knows it. Where is this coming from? "I'm sorry," he says anyway. "I didn't realize. I felt guilty because Oliver was my best friend. I should have--I love you, Laurel. I wish I could have--"

She's vibrating with emotion. Her eyes are huge in her drawn, tired face. Did _he_ really make her feel like this? "I love you too. But you need to leave."

"This isn't fair. If I'd come back a week later, you would have taken me back, but because I was kidnapped and tortured and kept in a cell for eight months...it doesn't feel like eight months to me, Laurel, because nothing happened to me in between! It feels like I fucked up yesterday, and I never got a chance to apologize." 

"I have had enough apologies to last me a lifetime," she says. "Do you remember when you walked out on me?"

He does.

"Do you remember what you said to me?"

"Laurel, I'm sorry."

"What did you say to me, Tommy?" 

"There's no jury, Laurel, you don't have to make me repeat it." 

"You said you thought you wanted me but then you realized you didn't."

It hits him that she's going to say it to him. _I thought I wanted you, Tommy, but last night made me realize I don't._ She's finally seen him for who he is and there's nothing about that she wants. It's going to hurt really badly, and he has to stand here and wait for it. _I will cut my tongue out if it makes you forgive me,_ he thinks.

"I have spent so much time trying to be reasonable, trying to see your side of things." Her eyes are bright. "Did you know I asked Oliver to move in with me the week he left on the Queen's Gambit?"

"No." It's so long ago. It shouldn't sting. But it took Tommy so much work just to get a fucking drawer. 

"I was too embarrassed to tell you."

"You have nothing to be embarrassed about."

"No, I don't." She looks so incredibly disgusted with him. "I went to say goodbye to him on the docks. I had no idea he was waiting for Sara, obviously. I asked him--I was really nervous, but I tried really hard to sound casual so I wouldn't make things weird. I asked him if everything was okay and if I'd freaked him out asking him to move in with me. He said everything was fine. And he kissed me."

The story makes him sad in a horribly immediate way. "I'm sorry." He wants to pull her in close and kiss the top of her head. She doesn't want that from him right now, though. Maybe she doesn't want that from him ever. Maybe he'll never be able to protect or comfort her again.

"I thought it was my fault. I thought I had been pushy, and awkward, and if I had just been a better girlfriend, he would have felt comfortable telling me he didn't want to move in together. If I wasn't such a bitch, he wouldn't have been intimidated to just break up with me. Maybe if I'd been less of a know-it-all at home, Sara wouldn't have..." She presses her lips shut on the end of that sentence. "When you left, I went over it and over it, wondering what I did, what I said, things I had done that must have been inappropriate, that were unfair to you, that must have made you feel like I didn't think you were wonderful. And it turns out I didn't do anything!"

Tomorrow he'll wake up with a hundred arguments on the tip of his tongue to throw back at her, but right now he feels so guilty he can't breathe, let alone speak.

He gets that. He gets needing to hammer someone with the truth until they can't do anything but stand there and understand how badly they've fucked you over. Maybe it's love that's blocking his throat. He loves her so fucking much. What kind of person hurts someone they love this badly? _A person like your father,_ he thinks. He swallows. "You're right. I'm sorry." 

"I'm going to ask you something, Tommy," she says. "Did you know Oliver was taking Sara on the Queen's Gambit?"

That floors him. Has she been wondering that all this time? "No." He realizes sickly that if Oliver _had_ told him, he wouldn't have warned Laurel. Thank God Oliver hadn't. "He was kind of on a need-to-know basis even then."

"I believe you." Her voice shakes a little. "But I don't know if I should."

"I'm sorry."

"Do you know who I went out with while you were gone?" she asks quietly.

"Sebastian Blood."

"You googled me, huh?" She says it almost like she used to, that resigned, almost-fond _of course I can't expect better from Tommy_ tone. He always hated it. "Yes, I went out with Sebastian Blood." She looks at the closed curtains for a second. "I was scared of him. He scared me. And I tried to tell my father, and he told me to go out with him anyway because he was a good guy and I was just sabotaging myself."

"That's really fucked up."

"Yes it is, and the crazy thing is, it sounded reasonable to me. Because I trusted you and Oliver, so obviously my instincts were useless."

"I'm really sorry, Laurel. I never wanted to hurt you."

She smiles. "Yes, you did."

He can't really argue with that.

"I'm sorry." She starts taking her rings off and laying them on the coffee table. "I look at you, and I want to be with you. I do." She doesn't look at him, though. "I still feel like trusting you. But I don't trust my own feelings. And you have no one to blame for that but yourself."

He doesn't know what to do. It seems like the right thing to do, the good-guy thing, would be to say okay and leave. She's right about everything. But he remembers Oliver showing his throat in surrender and how angry it made him. What did he really want from Oliver? 

What did he want from his father?

"I can do better," he says. "Help me do better."

She draws back. "I don't owe you anything." Her voice is scared and small and defiant.

"You don't." He takes a deep breath. She doesn't hate him. That was his worst fear and it didn't happen. Just keep going. "I want you to be happy. I want that more than anything. If you don't want to see me again, I understand." He doesn't. Refusing to understand something so awful is a hard lump in his chest. "But if you're willing to give me another chance, I'm willing to take it as slow as you want. I missed you."

She looks at her hands. She doesn't say no.

Words pile up in his throat. He always talks too much and does a hard sell when he's nervous, but he has to change. A person can change. He forces himself to relax his mouth, and somehow the words slip back down his throat. A minute or two pass in total silence, and the world doesn't end. They're still here together even if they aren't talking.

"Why don't you start by sending me flowers, and we'll see how that goes?" Even though she still looks miserable and tense, she tilts her head the tiniest bit and glances at him under her lashes.

Relief is a weird giddy burst of sadness, like now he can loosen enough to notice how he's feeling. Tears sting his eyes. "I would be honored."

She does meet his eyes, finally, and suddenly Tommy can't think about anything but kissing her. Judging by the look on her face, she's thinking about it too. Of course she loves him. Why is he so fucked up that he can't believe it for more than an hour or two at a time?

"If you want to kiss a little bit, we can still go slow afterwards," he says.

For a few seconds, she looks miserable and tense and indecisive. Then she crawls across the couch into his lap and brushes her mouth across his.

"Laurel." 

She whispers his own name back, smiling a little as she kisses him. 

He wishes he could forget how long he's wanted this and make it just a normal kiss, a happy kiss. But even though there's a creepy-crawly edge to the butterflies in his stomach, when her hair spreads across Oliver's hoodie and clings, he thinks that maybe he can live with these nerves forever if he has to. He wraps one of her curls around his finger. 

"Touch me," she says, and he obliges, puts his hand on her hip and runs it up her side to cup her breast. Laurel's breast. It's disconcerting that it's a little smaller than he remembers, but it's still soft and round and perfect and attached to Laurel, and she makes an impatient noise and tries to straddle him in her narrow work dress.

There's a beep. Tommy ignores it. 

There's another beep.

Laurel stops kissing him. "What was that?"

"It sounded like a text," he says, trying to pull her closer. "What perfume are you using these days? I like it."

"Thanks." She retreats to her side of the couch, taking a deep breath and unknotting the takeout bag. "I'm not very good at taking things slow, am I? You'd better see what Oliver wants. And tell him to come pick you up." She starts dividing the takeout into two piles.

God damn Oliver. Tommy wouldn't be surprised if he did that on purpose. If the curtains weren't closed, he'd suspect he was watching from a roof across the street.

 _What's going on?_ the first text reads, and then, _Sorry, you don't have to answer. I shouldn't have texted but Felicity said I was driving her crazy staring at the phone and I should just text to ask how it's going._

Tommy can't even really be mad.

 _Hard to tell,_ he texts back. _Could be worse. Give it a few days. Can you come pick me up?_ He hesitates, then adds, _Please don't send a stranger._

Laurel is glaring at the untraceable vigilante phone. "I can't believe that all that time I could have just called Oliver. God. I can't believe him."

 _What number is he on your speed dial?_ Tommy wants to ask. He doesn't. Anyway probably Oliver's lower on the list than Tommy just because Laurel's phone was already set up when he got back from the island. Not exactly significant. "He isn't the easiest person to be friends with. But who is, right?"

Laurel sighs. "Here, take your lo mein. Tell him not to come up. I can't talk to him right now."

Tommy's mouth waters as he texts.

###

"What did she say?" Oliver asks the second Tommy climbs into the car with him.

"She's pretty upset that we lied to her. She says don't call her, she'll call you when she's ready to talk about it. You should probably prepare for a cross-examination."

Oliver's mouth tightens. "She shouldn't be mad at you."

Tommy tries to imagine the conversation if Laurel had only been mad at Oliver, and suddenly realizes that that would have been worse. "Yeah, she should." 

Looking at Oliver, it's like he's the other half of Tommy, or like half of Tommy belongs to him. Not necessarily the best half, but Tommy feels protective of it anyway, the same way he felt protective of college-kid Laurel wondering if she'd been too pushy. The world will rip you apart if you don't hold yourself together.

Laurel is right: Tommy kind of put Oliver first. Friends are supposed to come first, right? Besides, Oliver's the closest thing he has to family. He grew up in the Queen house. Without Oliver, Tommy doesn't really have much. 

He does, though. Without Oliver, he still has everything but Oliver.

If he wants Laurel back, he's going to have to figure out how to separate out all this bullshit and not feel insecure around Oliver. That would be nice generally, actually, even if it never occurred to him before that it was possible.

"You should be mad at me too," he says. "I'm sorry I made things awkward last year. You tried really hard to be cool about the whole thing, and I couldn't let it go."

Oliver watches the road. Tommy knows he still loves Laurel, and it's an arrow of guilt right through his heart. But he's going to have to learn to live with that, because Laurel deserves better. And he deserves to find out if he has it in him to be somebody she can count on.

"No, I'm sorry," Oliver says. "I shouldn't have slept with her."

"No," Tommy agrees. "Or at least, if you were going to, you shouldn't have given me that pep talk first. That was a weird call."

Oliver grimaces. "It wasn't planned." He doesn't elaborate. "So where did you two leave things?"

"She said I had to go, and we are definitely not together, but that I could send her flowers and she'd see how she felt."

"I'm sorry." Oliver's hands tighten on the wheel, as if Tommy just told him Laurel threw his stereo out the window and set fire to his clothes. Oliver's not really a patient kind of guy. He doesn't have to be, when he's always just swept girls off their feet.

Tommy did this once, and he can do it again. Better this time. "It's okay," he says, and mostly means it. "I'm okay. Thanks for letting me crash at your place." 

Oliver looks unconvinced, or maybe he's just worrying about Laurel turning him in to the cops. Either way, he doesn't say anything else.

There are worse things than silence. Tommy slouches down in his seat and opens up his lo mein. The taste is even better than he remembered.


End file.
